Graves Yamaha Junior Cup R3: It's All for the Children

Lucky us/we/I got the invite up to Buttonwillow Raceway in California to get a look at what Chuck Graves and Yamaha have in store to conquer MotoAmerica’s new Junior Cup series, which replaces last season’s KTM 390 class. KTM s are still welcome, but now they’ll be duking it out with Kawasaki Ninja 300s and 400s, Honda CBR500Rs, Suzuki GSX250Rs – and nine teenagers receiving factory-ish support from Graves Motorsports.

Chuck Graves definitely knows his way around Yamahas; the names Graves and Yamaha have been inseparable in the US for at least 20 years now, and Yamaha Race Director Keith McCarty was also on hand at Buttonwillow to welcome Yamaha’s new crop of potential stars. Day 1 was an introduction to the Graves system of racing, Day 2 would be the riders’ first time on track with their new bikes.

A big part of the Graves package is learning to go about racing in a professional manner. That involves meticulous preparation and careful setup of suspension, the Suter slipper clutch, etc. – and all nine Graves R3 riders will be using interactive setup sheets to record every suspension adjustment: fork height, swingarm length, fork preload, fork clickers (all the way in is 0, first click out is 1), rear ride height, shock preload and damping adjusters, gearing… Make sure you write it all down!

You don’t have to change the clutch plates every race weekend, but Chuck would. Slipper clutches do wear them out faster. The R3’s design requires that you drain the coolant to get to the clutch. Follow the manual for bleeding it after you refill it. Check the oil. These engines, Chuck tells us, have run 7000 miles in endurance events without problems. Keep an eye on valve clearances, perform leakdown tests to ensure all is snug, you should be fine. If not, we have six engine crates that UPS can ship anywhere in three days…

The DID 415 drive chain looks like a gold necklace and consumes very little power; it should be replaced at 500 km. Be sure it’s properly tensioned and you shouldn’t have any issues. If you want to have somebody else work on your suspension, engine or ECU, feel free (FTECU handles the programming). But, well, the basic gist is, don’t come crying to Chuck if you wind up maladjusted. “We need to know where suspension starts and where it ends up. We don’t want to tune or advise you if you have other people work on your suspension.”

Here’s the Graves baseline and no doubt not a bad set of specs to crib from if you’re building your own R3 at home):

Forty-two rear-wheel horsies compares favorably to the 35 MO got on our last R3 dyno pull. Will it be enough to run with modified KTMs? How are we going to ensure parity between all the bikes in the series, including the new Ninja 400 that’s also eligible? That’s the job of the Junior Cup-mandated HM Shifter Kit/ Rev Limiter. For now, the R3 and Ninja twin-cylinders are allowed to rev to 13,000 rpm, the RC390 single to 10,500. The Ninja 400 twin’s limit is yet to be determined – and all those numbers can be adjusted by MotoAmerica throughout the season to try to keep things even by simply plugging a computer into the HM unit.

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Now it’s time to tune the rider. Another part of the Graves package is access to multi-time AMA Champ Josh Hayes, who says he’d prefer to be racing but is also excited about his new role as “Yamaha Factory Racing Ambassador and bLU cRU Rider Coach.” When Josh got his first ride as a guest on a WERA National bike, he shared with the kids, the crew chief told him this motorcycle may not be perfect, but it’s as close to perfect as we can get it this weekend. The goal is to have a motorcycle that doesn’t cause the rider to have to work around any issues. The goal is to have a bike that doesn’t hold the rider back in any way.

That’s what Graves is going for here. In a class where all the equipment should be equal, speed will be rider-dependent. Some riders will prove to be more equal than others. If you’ve ever raced at all, you know how many times you could’ve done better if something on your bike hadn’t (insert mechanical problem here). And if something does go wrong, the Graves 18-wheeler, packed with parts, will be easy to spot in the pits at every MotoAmerica round. (Cash is the preferred exchange medium.)